Deus ex Machina
by Eline
Summary: This was a totally pointless fic written on a whim and my first attempt (stress on *attempt*) at HP humour. Beware of the Plot-holes. (Believe it or not, there is no real angst in it at all.)
1. Deus ex Machina

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Deus ex Machina

By Eline (eline@rheow.net)

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A totally pointless story written for no reason in particular.

Harry Potter was no ordinary boy. That being said and done, let's find out why.

Harry was a wizard--that fact alone already makes him a good deal less ordinary than four fifths of the population. As he went to wizard school, he would never know the wonders of calculus, trigonometry and statistics. Nor would he ever know the joys of Home Economics/Workshop class, or have the chance to put up his hand to ask questions with the rest of the (suddenly *very* enthusiastic) class after they covered chapter twenty-three (Reproduction in Humans) of the biology textbook. As if flying, doing magic and having adventures would make up for all that at all . . .

Harry was also learning all the important skills that every one, whether wizard or Muggle (that's the non-magical types), needs for life in the world outside. Like procrastination, ballroom dancing, asking a member from the female half of the species out, and recycling Christmas/Birthday gifts he doesn't particularly like. He's not alone in this--he's got a pair of chums who tag along for the ride and life with them just got even more interesting after puberty hit them. (Harry should be thinking of investing in a pair of earplugs by now.)

And no, I don't think he doesn't know about *that* part of growing up yet--no biology classes, you see. (I'll eat a pointy wizard-type hat if I ever saw Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia sitting down and giving Harry the birds and the bees talk. Poor fellow would be scared out of his wits--after all they did manage to produce his cousin Dudley . . . but I'm digressing.)

While this fic isn't about that sort of thing, I'd just like to warn you that the PG-rating on this fic isn't just for show before we go any further.

Anyway, we'll just cut to the chase . . . The chase where Harry, Ron and Hermione were pelting down the corridors of Hogwarts on another illegal midnight excursion (to the kitchens in an attempt to liberate house elves--it was Hermione' idea, naturally) and being chased by Flich and his cat.

"Can't we all just get under the Invisibility Cloak?" Hermione asked plaintively as they ran on. 

"C-can't--Mrs. Norris can smell us!" Harry panted, exposing the one weakness of the Invisibility Cloak plot-device.

"We've got to hide--Flich knows this place better than we do!"

"I-in here!" Hermione wheezed and opened one of the many convenient doors lining the corridor at random. They hurried in and shut it, panting hard.

"Hey--look!" Harry had turned around first and was gaping at the contents of the room in surprise.

They all stared around the room incredulously.

"I don't believe it . . . it really exists," Ron breathed as they gaze up in awe at the shelves. "And I thought he was making it up . . ."

"It really is the Chamber of Magnificent Chamber Pots," Harry said as he consulted his handy little Mauraders' Map. Sirius and Co.'s coverage of Hogwarts had been nothing but thorough--they had even included rooms that existed at five-thirty a.m. in the morning next Tuesday. 

"Does that mean that we accidentally ran into next Tuesday morning then?"

"Hurray--no History of Magic test!" Ron crowed, shrugging aside the sheer enormity of what this could mean in terms of the space-time continuum in favour of skiving off.

"Oh manky old Blast-Ended Skwerts!" Hermione moaned. "I was studying all week for that!"

(But you knew she was going to say that, didn't you?)

Having nothing better to do at the moment, the intrepid threesome wandered down the rows of magnificent chamber pots, exclaiming at particularly interesting items of bedroom crockery as they passed. There were ornate chamber pots that looked like they belonged to Emperors and sultans, painted porcelain chamber pots from the various Dynasties and the more modest variety of chamber pots that served their purpose just as well. Some of them were wizard-made--they could tell by the moving pictures of streams painted on the sides and some of them had Whistling Charms attached. It was a humbling experience to see a common denominator for all mankind arrayed on those shelves. 

"Wonder where all of them came from?"

"Maybe one of the founders had a chamber pot fetish . . ."

"Or maybe it's a collection of chamber pots from the time when they didn't have flushing toilets . . ."

We could go all day describing chamber pots (that's what tertiary education does to you--you can rattle off 1000 words on practically any topic), but as the human attention span is shorter than the life of an average mayfly, we'll have to forego _History of Chamber Pots 101_ and leave it off for another day.

So after seeing more chamber pots than they had in their whole lives, they turned round a corner shelf--

And found themselves face to face with a short, pudgy balding man with a silver arm. He had his wand out and pointed threateningly at them in case they didn't know that he meant business.

"Wormtail? How did he get in *here*?" 

"He's a *rat*, isn't he? He could've sneaked in here anytime!" Hermione whispered.

"Hi, kids," Wormtail said as he cornered them. "Don't scowl at me like that me--I'm just the messenger. Someone wants to talk to you for a moment . . ."

Ron swore horribly as Wormtail held up a shiny object. (But not really, of course--there are only so many words with truly *negative* connotations in the English language. The rest were just made up over time.)

It was Voldemort, aka Harry's arch-nemesis, who was not there in the Chamber himself but in proxy via a hand-held crystal ball proffered by his lackey Wormtail.

"Oh dear--is he trying to kill you *again*?" Hermione asked.

"Technically speaking, yes--but it's time for something a little different," drawled the snake-like Dark Wizard.

"But originality's not really your strong suit, is it?"

"Ha ha--that's was sarcasm. At least you kids are learning fast. Why, I--"

Harry interrupted him halfway. "Could we just skip to the 'heinous plot' part of the narrative?"

Voldemort shot him an irritated look and from where they were standing, they could see his much-talked-about-nostrils flaring, unpleasantly magnified by the crystal ball. "I realised that I've been really stupid for not thinking of this in the first place," Voldemort said. "After being soundly defeated by a boy who doesn't even need to shave yet *four* times in a row, I figured that there was something wrong in my approach to the whole matter."

"What's that?" Harry asked in spite of the worrisome fact that he was in mortal danger.

"I relied too much on magic--magic was my downfall after all. I should have known better," he sighed. "But enough of this. If you want a whole page where the villain expounds on his evil plan to take over the world and bump off the hero in the process, go read another fanfic. I'm just going to get down to the nitty-gritty and kill you."

"Uh-oh . . ."

"But how *are* you going to kill Harry without magic?" Hermione, being quicker on the uptake than the other two, asked.

"Simple--Wormtail over there will tip over that shelf and squash you flat where you stand." Voldemort chuckled at their horrified looks. "A departure from my usual M. O., I know. I tried stupid wizard lackeys, giant snakes and incredibly convoluted and complex plots involving a lot of plot devices--none of which worked because of faulty magic. I'm sure your certain death this time will be suitably spectacular, if not magical in nature."

"Not to mention the headlines," Harry muttered. Seeing--or rather *not* seeing--"Potter Squashed in Freak Potty Accident!" on the front page would be really embarrassing and detrimental to his social life, or afterlife if it came to that.

"And *delays*--everyone knows that the longer the delay, the more chance the hero has of surviving," Voldemort said, shaking his head in disgust. "So you're going to die right now--good-bye, Potter . . . Wormtail--do the honours."

"It's been nice knowing you guys . . ." Harry said as he saw his approaching doom . . .

"Hold it right there!"

Wormtail froze in the act of tipping over the shelf just as a raven-haired woman popped into existence before them.

"Be gone, foul shade--"

"Oh *please*," said the woman, who was looking more and more solid by the moment, before she snapped her fingers and froze Wormtail for real this time. Describing her would take up a bunch of lines, so let's just say that she looked like some chick togged up in leather (only because the author type person made a silly resolution to mention leather at least once in her fics) and save a few joules of energy.

Voldemort's image in the crystal ball could be seen to be crying now.

"Who are you?" they inquired of the spectre that had just saved them from death by a shelf of common denominators.

"_Deus ex Machina_," she said. They stared as her hair started changing colour. "Oh ignore *that*--that's just an unimportant plot device."

"Well thank you for saving us, Miss Machina--" Harry began.

"No. No. No," the woman said patiently. "I *am* _Deus ex Machina_--not some vulgar everyday apparition!"

"Huh? What does she mean by that?" Ron looked bewildered. 

"I think she means Peeves," Harry whispered. "He's definitely a vulgar apparition . . ."

The withering look she gave them was hardly encouraging. "What in the world do they teach at schools these days?" she asked the ceiling.

(If you were expecting the ceiling to say anything, be prepared to be disappointed. It was just a ceiling--with a very nice frieze of stylised chamber pots on the borders, but a ceiling nonetheless.)

"Nothing much actually," said Voldemort tearfully from the crystal ball. "Not enough to defeat a full-fledged Dark Wizard, that's for sure--"

"Oh yeah, *right*," Harry and Co. said.

Voldemort rolled his eyes--a very interesting effect for someone who had eyes like red marbles. "Oh for the love of snakes! Did you really think that you could've defeated *me* alone? It was because of *her*--always her!" he cried, gesticulating at the woman. "Why do you have to go and spoil it every time?"

"Hey, I am what I am."

"*What* are you?" someone inevitably asked.

"I am the Goddess of Plot-devices and Plot-holes. Sometimes, I am a Muse. At other times, Writer's Block. I am that fleeting-but-oh-so-cool-idea-that-struck-you-while-you-were-brushing-your-teeth-in-the-morning-and-just-had-to-write-it-in-your-fic," she declaimed while her hair turned electric blue. "I am the inexplicable, the weird and the ridiculous plot twists. I am--" 

"Someone who's incredibly full of herself," Hermione muttered to Harry and Ron.

"--the Mistress of Melodrama--I *heard* that, missy--High Priestess of Happy Endings and Baroness of Bad-Continuity."

The three of them looked nonplussed while Voldemort was tearing at his hair--well, he *would* have been if he had any.

"Oh very funny, author!" he snapped to someone they couldn't see. "Make fun of me because I'm bald, is that it?"

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Not really--I don't know any other slaphead jokes.

"What was *that*?" Ron asked.

"Nothing--just an irritating phenomena. Ignore it," _Deus ex Machina_ said impatiently. "The point of all this rhetoric is, that I, _Deus ex Machina_, am the reason why you have managed to survive this long and why old Voldie over there is going to be eternally frustrated by a bunch of teenage magicians."

Voldemort could be heard cursing from his crystal ball now. Ron fumbled around in his pockets to find some paper to take notes.

"Without me, Potter, you wouldn't have been able to make it to Hogwarts every term. You probably would still be stuck on Privet Drive--"

"Oh really? I haven't seen you before," Harry said dubiously.

"Oh really now?" she asked dryly.

"Neither have we," Ron and Hermione chipped in.

"I happen to know all of you *very* well . . ."

She drew herself up to her full height, her mane of blue hair rippling like . . . well, like anything that ripples. "After all, I am the Goddess of Plot-devices and Plot-holes. Don't you even *know* who my followers (unwitting or self-confessed) are?"

"Oh no!" Hermione gasped as the bright, glaring light of realisation dawned on her. "Not--"

"TV show scriptwriters," Harry exclaimed, blanching like an almond.

"Authors!" Ron groaned. "And even worse--"

"F-fa . . ." Hermione seemed to have trouble saying it.

"*Fanfic* authors!" everyone howled in dismay.

"Got it in one," she said with a smile as her hair turned a lurid shade of neon pink. "Pretty much anyone who writes fiction knows me in some way or another."

"Any f-fanfic authors around now?" Ron asked nervously. He had found his wand and was pointing it shakily this way and that. (As if that would help much in a situation involving fanfic authors . . .)

"Are you clueless, or simply daft?" Voldemort asked sardonically. "I think I'll be doing the world a favour if I got rid of all three of you . . ."

"Fat chance, Moldywarts," Harry said as he and Hermione got out their wands too.

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Deus ex Machina sighed and shook her (now teal green) head. "There you go, waving around your little handheld phallic symbols again," she said with a yawn.

They just stared at her.

She snorted softly in exasperation. "It's a Freudian concept-thingy . . . Don't make me start on those flying phallic symbols, kid." 

"What?" Harry asked, clearly bewildered.

"Broomsticks," Voldemort said in a bored tone. "Look, this is a waste of time. Evil Dark Lords *do* have better things to occupy their time . . . I've got an appointment for tea with my great-granduncle Sauron at four today. Let's get it over and done with, Rainbow Brite."

"All right. You can switch off your crystal ball now and go curse a few things to perdition because Harry and Co. just defeated Wormtail."

"We did?"

"Yep--you . . . er, you turned the tables and dropped a shelf of common denominators (i.e. the lame-duck running gag in this fic) on him," _Deus ex Machina_ said. "Hey author type person--your plot ideas are running really low now . . ." she muttered.

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I know--just keep going.

"It's dead embarrassing--my lackeys get thrashed by under-aged wizards every time," Voldemort complained. "And it's hardly *believable*--"

"Yeah, but everyone else believes it because of me. And Potter's got to last for another three books, you know," _Deus ex Machina_ said. "I've got to keep him alive until then."

"I suppose he really cleans my clock in Book Seven?"

"That's for J. K. to know and us to fork over our hard-earned dosh to find out."

Voldemort shook his head. "Too true. Well, I'll get going now . . . If you could unfreeze Wormtail, we could get on with this. It's not *that* surprising that those three would get the better of him though. Good help is so hard to come by--and he was the best I could find. It's *sad*, I know . . ."

"Hey!" said the unfrozen Wormtail (who had to have at least some form of emotion in this fic to make his cameo appearance worthwhile). "You *need* evil but stupid lackeys to carry out your dirty work!"

"He's got a point--you can't have lackeys who are smarter than you," _Deus ex Machina_ said.

"That's the universal Plot-Device, all right . . . So can I hope to get Wormtail back in one piece after you drop a shelf of running gags on him?"

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Deus ex Machina nodded as Wormtail whimpered, "Bloomin' heck--I should've become a post office clerk like my Mum wanted me to . . ." to himself. "Of course--there's still a lot of unanswered questions about his bond with Harry," she said. ("I didn't want that!" Harry protested in the background.) "You'll get him back after he disapparates out of here in the nick of time before the teachers come in--"

"You can't apparate or disapparate in Hogwarts," Hermione pointed out for the six hundred and thirty-seventh time. "I think . . . I think that might be a Plot-Device too."

"Darn--my memory's acting up," _Deus ex Machina_ said. "Oh well . . . he'll go by Portkey then."

"That's a Portable Plot-Device, isn't it?" Ron asked, catching on at last.

"Very good--you've got it! Now, how are we going to make this look real?" she pondered as she surveyed the rows of shelves . . .

* * * * * * * *

End _Deus ex Machina_

(Originally titled "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Magnificent Chamber Pots"--but that sounds just plain daft in writing, doesn't it?)

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Well, that was fairly pointless, wasn't it? Hmmm, I don't even think it's all that funny . . . And I don't know where my brain went--it's probably in next Tuesday with that presentation I'm supposed to finish on axon specificity.

Thanks goes to: my sister for that "Potty" bit, Earthwalk for her comments, and the both of them for proof-reading it.

Disclaimer: All HP characters and the Beautifully Proportioned Room with the Magnificent Collection of Chamber Pots belong to J. K. Rowling. Deus ex Machina_ is very likely the property of all people who invent fiction. I don't make anything dosh off this and I certainly didn't mean to be offensive in any way to anyone._


	2. Deus/Dea ex Machina Part Deux

Dea/Deus ex Machina (Part Deux: The Alternate Universe/Avatar Hypothesis)

Dea/Deus ex Machina 

Part Deux: The Alternate Universe/Avatar Hypothesis 

(Trousers Remix v2.4)

By Eline

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Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling owns the HP-related characters--you know this and I know this, right? Dea/Dues ex Machina, the Goddess of Plot-Devices personified, belongs to anyone who ever wrote fiction--I only gave her a tangible shape and an attitude to go. 

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It was a day. An ordinary day, as "ordinary" as can be in the wonderful world of fanfiction, temperatures ranging between the "soggy, stodgy English weather" and "oh-screw-it-all-for-the-sake-of-the-fic-and-make-it-a-fine-day" zones with the probability of badfic on the way. Setting the scene is a harassed looking fanfic author, who is trying to find less cliched ways of doing so but is running low on inspiration at 1am in the morning (which is *the* standard time for writing fanfic). She settles for the anonymous safehouse in some anonymous town and stuffs in the characters hurriedly recruited for this silly endeavour.

And then the owl . . . Good grief! Do you know how much trouble it is to get owls? Or to get the approval from the authorities and animal rights groups before you can get them to work in a fic? Ahem, back to the matter at hand . . .

The owl came swooping into the window (of the anonymous safehouse in some anonymous town) and deposited a letter on the table in front of the two wizards seated there. Clearly this was time for yet another Harry Potter Fanfiction, one of the several thousands in which efficient and prompt owl-post was commonplace. (Just so that you, the reader, know that you haven't wandered into the wrong fanfic by mistake and faint from the shock. From seeing a postal service that doesn't screw up, I mean.)

"It's a letter from Harry," said the wizard known (on the Ministry of Magic's Most Wanted List) as Sirius Black (but elsewhere as "pookie" or "Snuffles") with a grin. Next to his obsessive plans for throttling/dismembering Wormtail very slowly on video, being a good godfather was next on his priorities-list. As rat-torture is still a rather nasty thought even for a good guy, chock full of potential for violence and bloodshed, we'd just like to remind all readers that this is a PG-13-rated fic because it's going to get even worst later on.

"He's keeping well, I suppose," said the other wizard, Remus Lupin, whose house it was that they were sitting in and having tea. (Which proved that being a werewolf or a convicted-but-innocent-ex-prisoner did not stand in the way of being perfectly mundane, dull, or normal.)

At this point, it was time for Sirius to read out the letter for the edification of anyone who was interested.

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Dear Sirius,

Gryffindor won the match against Slytherin last week--we're mightily chuffed.

Oh, and before I forget--Ron, Hermione and I escaped certain death in the Chamber of Chamber Pots. We weren't hurt, but Wormtail got squashed by a shelf. He only got away just in time, but you don't have to worry about me as they won't try anything again so quickly.

Hope you're fine. Give Moony a pat for me.

Harry

"That's nice," Lupin said with the same strained smile people wore when presented with the achievements of some proud parents' sprog.

"Ah, but you have to interpret this as though you were a fifteen year old boy," Sirius said. "So it actually says . . ."

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Dear Sirius,

I trounced Malfoy royally last week in our usual game of one-upmanship--but then again, I normally do. Hooray for me.

We escaped certain death via a plot device because we're central characters. And you're not to worry because I'm a boy and like all teenage boys, I have this tendency to shy away from different forms of affection or parental emotion--possibly because I have been deprived of said affection while I was younger.

Hope you haven't gotten caught yet because you're the only relation I actually like. Hi to Professor Lupin too. (I don't want know what you guys get up to. Really.)

Harry

"Ah, so everything's nice and normal then?" asked Lupin in the same way that people generally said "I have a bad feeling about this" and the oh-so-famous-last-words: "it can't get any worse".

"Yeah . . . At least he's not seeing Draco Malfoy and having truckloads of angst over dating a Slytherin."

It was then that the sparkles (as in the "Ooo, pretty!" kind of sparkles) appeared over the table and a leather boot appeared in the plate of biscuits.

Actually, there were two leather boots. One left one and a right one. A pair of leather boots, one in the plate of biscuits and the other narrowly missing the teapot in the shape of a supposedly jolly pink pig with a constipated expression (which Lupin got at a Salvation Army sale--being an impoverished wizard has its downsides, you know?).

Oh yeah, the aforementioned leather fetish-footwear was also attached to a pair of leather-clad legs. Which were attached to a leather-clad torso, above which hovered a face surrounded by a cloud of jade green hair.

Lupin recovered first and set down his teacup (with patterns of little yellow duckies on it--hey, it had been a mismatched tea-set after all) before he dropped it from the shock of having a woman dressed in the skins of two and a half butchered cows land in the middle of tea. "And what on earth is some strange woman dressed in leather doing on the table?" he asked. (Normally, he would have asked the visitor to sit down for a cup of tea, but he was not so inclined to be polite to uninvited guests who broke the biscuit plate with the pattern of cute little doggies on the rim.)

"Dea/Deux ex Machina," said the woman in dominatrix gear. "God/dess of Plot Devices, Arbiter of Angst, Princess of Plot-Holes. . . most certainly not at your service."

"Eh?" Puzzled by this introduction, the wizards contrived to observe the newcomer more carefully in case they had missed something the first time around. One never knew these days . . . what with the line between genders going all fuzzy . . .

"Oh please, not like *that* . . . There's too much testosterone floating around and so I'm female right now."

"Yes, but what are you doing *here*?"

"Oh it's another fanfic." Deus/Dea ex Machina sighed. "Again."

Sirius Black swore creatively. (You know he does, right? He's just the type to swear creatively.) "Dash it all, can't a wizard have a moment's peace?"

"Wait a minute, is this a *slash* fic?" Lupin asked worriedly. "If it was, they should've said earlier. I'd have gone regimental."

"You don't?" Sirius feigned surprise. "I do it all the time."

"Oh TMI!" said Deus ex Machina.

"So what *are* you wearing then?" Sirius asked innocently just after everyone had gotten their minds out of the gutter, thereby plunging them back in again to face the eternal question: boxers or briefs? 

Lupin's face was the picture of tweedy, teacher-like horror. "This is hardly the time, Sirius . . . Unless it's a slash fic. Then this would be the point where the PG-13 rating would stop applying very quickly."

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No, not a slash fic. If I was writing a slash fic then there wouldn't be all this digression. There'd be--

"Angst," Deus ex Machina muttered under her breath. "Truckloads of bloody angst."

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And trimmed with Placebo/Depeche Mode/Nirvana lyrics for an angsty soundtrack. But I haven't tried that yet.

"Oh dear . . . One of those *fanfic* authors. Is it one of yours, or one of mine?" Sirius asked in trepidation.

"Hmmm--it's rather hard to tell these days . . ."

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*helpfully points at Lupy Groupies tee-shirt with pride*

"Looks like one of yours . . ."

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I'm not wearing my W.A.A.S. tee today . . .

"*What*?"

"That's Wizards/Witches/Weirdoes Against Anti-Snape-ism," Lupin said tiredly. "Guess which category she belongs to?"

"Another Snape fan? Well I suppose it's better than them torturing him with angst instead of us . . ." said Sirius with the air of someone who knew what truckloads of angst felt like applied repeatedly with trimmings of slash.

"Don't bet on it--it's that fanfic author with the thing for leather pants."

Sirius--

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Robes: Check.

Hair: Fantastic.

Undies: Not applicable.

Sex Appeal: Oy!

Leather pants: You wish.

--Black just stared looked blank. "*Which* one of the fanfic authors with the thing for leather pants?"

"That one about Lupin and Snape liking Hendrix and starting a rock band," Dea/Deus ex Machina said with a snort.

"Oh really? *With* the leather pants?" Sirius asked with a growing smirk.

"Well if you must know--yes," Remus--

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Tweedy, patched robes: Check.

Fur: Nope.

Tail: Not applicable.

Undies: Yeah, boxers. 

Animal Magnetism: Affirmative!

Leather pants: We're out of luck today, ladies.

--Lupin said in resignation as Sirius gave a great whoop of laughter. "It isn't funny at all . . . All sorts of nasty, angsty things happen in that fic . . . not to mention hereditary lycanthropy. You can sober up now, Sirius," he said in a mildly disapproving way as Sirius found sitting on his chair increasingly difficult and had settled for rolling on the floor.

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*A pause for Sirius fans to drool.*

"I mean . . . it's ludicrous to the point of hilarity," Sirius muttered through his teeth as he picked himself off the floor in an attempt to sober up. "I haven't laughed that bloody hard since Azkaban . . ."

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Funny that . . . Everyone else said that too . . . *looks at co-author* Did we mean it to be funny?

"It is a *possibility*--unfortunately," Lupin admitted with shudder.

"Just like all those slash fics are possible--because of Alternate Universes," Dea/Deus ex Machina chipped in because she was feeling left out.

"Oh dear."

"Another subscriber to the Alternative Universe hypothesis."

Deus ex Machina looked up from filing her nails. "Hey, most people have watched _Sliders_, right? Alternative Universes aren't even a new idea. It's got something to do with physics or something--"

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The Trousers of Time.

"Pardon me, but *what*?"

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Trousers of Time. Pterry said so.

"Psycho-fangirl," Sirius muttered, not very amused at how some weirdoes liked dragging their favourite authors into fanfics.

"Oooh, sarcasm," Lupin said sarcastically.

"One more time--with feeling!" Deus ex Machina said, positively dripping with sarcasm to make a point that, yes, this was a sarcastic interlude. "You know, sarcasm, isn't that easy to spot sometimes without the actual term 'sarcasm' or 'sarcastically' hanging off the end of a sentence."

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I haven't found a 'Sarcasm' font yet. I would like one though.

"Well, if they have fonts like 'Font in a Red Suit' and 'Hug Your Intern', 'Sarcasm' or 'Dripping with Sarcasm' shouldn't be a stretch," said Deus ex Machina as she tossed her tangerine-tinged hair.

"Oh dear . . . Not the Trousers of Time Theory again?"

"Indeed, it is the Trousers of Time Theory--Alternate Universes, branching off from one single happenstance and giving rise to a thousand other possibilities," said Lupin in full Professor-mode. 

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*Another pause for Lupin fans to drool over Lupin in full Professor-mode.*

"Sheeesh, fangirls . . ." muttered Deus/Dea ex Machina as her hair turned taupe.

"Hold on," Sirius demanded. "Taupe? Tangerine? What sort of colour is *taupe*?" 

"Damned if I know," was the reply. "I don't think the author knows either."

There was a lengthy pause in which the characters recovered, re-read the past few pages and remembered what the heck they were talking about in the first place before moving along.

"Um, so what's this universe then?"

"The one with Gods of Plot Devices dropping in for tea?" Lupin asked. 

"How about the one where everyone just sits around and has tea without interruptions?" Sirius was definitely peeved over missing his tea with biscuits.

"Is there such a universe?"

"Dunno . . . Anyone wrote that one yet?"

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This can be the fic universe where everything's in florid prose . . . really--I can swing that . . .

"Oh the horror!" exclaimed Sirius, leaning backwards and drawing attention to the fact that his trousers under his wizardly robes girdled his lean, but manly loins just so.

This caused Lupin frown in his mild, yet strangely intense way. "Really--this is too much--" he protested, looking wonderfully anguished in a mild, understated way that drove women wild as they imagined the possible reasons for his muted angst. And we haven't even gotten to the part about how *his* trousers fitted yet-- "You can stop that right now!"

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How about Victorian-Jane-Austen-Bronte-sisters style then?

"That out-dated writing style, while appearing erudite and genteel seeming, does appear to be greatly taxing on the readers who have to forge through the tangled morass of sentences without end!" cried Sirius, no doubt aghast at the sheer temerity of fanfiction authors who consistently torment their long-suffering fictional players and assorted beta-readers with heaps of unnecessarily long-winded and grammatically suspect prose; often inter-spaced with multiple commas and semicolons--not to mention tacked-on, redundant additions. "This is also causing many a difficulty in the thesaurus and dictionary department!"

"And they always have some male lead in overly-tight breeches!"

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All right, even *that* was getting a little too much--my eyes are crossing from tracking that sentence . . .

"She hasn't lost all sense yet . . ." said Dea/Deus ex Machina as all the characters heaved a collective sigh of relief at being spared the tedium of excessive sentence construction and tight breeches.

"We could call this the fic-universe-in-which-the-fanfic-characters-are-oppressed," Sirius suggested. "I think we're definitely oppressed here."

"But fanfic characters *are* generally oppressed," Lupin said.

"No kidding--you *just* realised that?"

"Or maybe we should call this the most-blatant-avatar-insertation-fic-universe," Lupin said darkly.

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*looks a tad guilty* Whoops . . . How did that happen? Heh . . .

"By Hoki*!" Sirius exclaimed, looking up in surprise. "It's true!" (*Hoki: God of Lame-arsed jokes and bad punning.)

"Busted," Dea/Deus ex Machina said. "It took you long enough to realise that."

"Well, if the leather outfit didn't give the readers a clue, the funny eyes and colour-changing hair should have tipped them off straight away," Lupin said, pulling out one of the thick, really dry and ancient looking books he kept around the place to maintain his D.A.D.A. teacher credibility. "I have a reference here in my _Grimoire Fictus_ . . . The common avatar--one of the most feared and reviled creatures in fanfic--"

"Oh really? I must protest!" Dea/Deus ex Machina said.

"They also tend to be in denial," Lupin said to Sirius.

"Hoy!"

"It's just so sad," Sirius said, shaking his head.

"Firstly, not one of you two blokes (heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual/neutered or otherwise)--or your under-aged godson for that matter--have fallen for me--"

Thank goodness for small blessings," Sirius muttered. He had yet to speak to Harry about certain facts of life and was dreading that day, but he certainly hoped that the boy would have the sense to steer clear of women in leather until much, much later. Depending on his taste, of course.

"--And secondly I willingly admit that I am a Plot-Device created by the author solely for the purpose of these inane fics," she continued on regardless, "it doesn't mean that I don't have feelings, dammit!"

There was a short, uncomfortable silence--in which nobody had anything constructive to say--that was eventually broken by the faint noise coming from outside. (Of course, this was merely a poorly executed plot device just to keep the story moving when the author has run out of things to blather on about and the fic has stalled like a kiddie-sized broomstick with Hagrid on it.)

Lupin looked out of the window quizzically. "There's a mob of people out there. They look like they're out for blood," he said in a calm, matter-of-fact tone because he didn't believe in exclamation points even in life-threatening situations.

"How do you know?" Sirius asked, alarmed.

"I think the pitchforks and flaming torches rather gave them away . . ."

"Oh dearie me--time for me to make a quiet exit, stage left," Dea/Deus ex Machina said, apparently quite recovered from her previous hissy-fit. (Well, she *is* the Goddess of Plot-Holes and Plot-Devices after all . . .)

"So they're after *you*? Whatever for?"

"You don't get to be the Goddess of Plot-Holes without making a few enemies . . ." she said, stating the obvious. "Well, it's been nice, chaps, but I've got to run. Ta now." And she disappeared in a showy display of sparks that was typical of melodramatic avatars all over the place.

"Sirius--there's going to be an angry mob storming my house," Lupin said, showing his own flair for stating the obvious. "And I just paid the rent, too."

"I hope the landlord's got insurance--" Sirius began just as the front door burst open.

"Excuse me--did anyone see any Avatars of the Goddess of Plot-Holes around?" asked one torch-wielding mob-member.

"Funny coloured hair and leather?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

"She went . . . that way . . . somewhere," Sirius said, making a vague gesture in mid-air.

"Oh, that way . . . somewhere?" asked the first mob-member, making a similar gesture in mid-air.

"You've got it," Sirius said, hoping that the mob would take the hint and clear off. But due to the perverse nature of this fanfic, the mob does notice them.

There was a clatter as someone dropped their pitchfork as the mob stared at Sirius and Lupin. There was a definite sense of recognition between both parties.

"Sirius Black!"

'And Lupin too? I wanna see--"

"I have a bad feeling about this . . ." Sirius muttered.

"Yes, I know you and the fanfic author like Star Wars, Sirius, but this is no time to get nostalgic! They're--"

"The series fans and fanfic authors--I realised that," Sirius said in the calm, level tones of someone who is trying hard not to panic.

"I think running seems to be the order of the day . . ."

"Excellent suggestion, Moony--let's scarper . . ."

* * * * * * * * *

End of Dea/Deus ex Machina Part Deux

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Yes, I should be working on "The Reckoning". But the temptation to kick the mickey out of myself was too much to bear. The phrase "Trousers of Time" belongs to Terry Pratchett, not me.


End file.
